New 183 build

[Stephen1966]

The 68k 1W Piher on the entrance to the overdrive has been described as having a "rolled off top end with sweet mids"... just wondering, what you might use in its place... a modern, in production alternative.

[WhopperPlate]

The 68k 1W Piher on the entrance to the overdrive has been described as having a "rolled off top end with sweet mids"... just wondering, what you might use in its place... a modern, in production alternative.

Try a KOA Speer 2 watt . I like them there . Not the same but definitely similar; I have an extra piher 68k 1/2 watt if you want .

[Stephen1966]

The 68k 1W Piher on the entrance to the overdrive has been described as having a "rolled off top end with sweet mids"... just wondering, what you might use in its place... a modern, in production alternative.

Try a KOA Speer 2 watt . I like them there . Not the same but definitely similar; I have an extra piher 68k 1/2 watt if you want .

KOAs keep popping up as alternatives, I'm wondering what you think of Yageo, or Xicon for that matter?

I must say a big thank you for your very kind kind offer, but I have a dirty little secret... I found a stash of 68k/1W Pihers on ebay earlier and I bought some already! The goal is still to find an in production alternative, it will just be easier to audition them with the genuine article in place. In the meantime, I've been looking for Mepco/Electras and thinking of their alternatives, any suggestions would be welcomed as I'm putting orders together now and it would be grand to try a few high tolerance 22k alternatives. I very much doubt a Mepco can be found...

For most of the circuit, I'm going to be using Xicon CF and MF but it is the grids which MrD paid particular attention to. These seem to be more critical component selections to me. What do you think?

As for Ebay. I am a very weak man and I am giving myself a very strong talking to. "Do. Not. Do. It."

[WhopperPlate]

amplifiers I have built with all xicon were pretty forgiving and easy to play . Too easy for me . I like less compression . Mixing them with Koa (amongst others) in select positions helps me find a balance . As stated previously, I love old Iskras for that uncompressed high mid clarity . I feel like xicons go in the opposite direction .

I hear yageo as less compressed . More high mid . But my experience using then isn’t as extensive and thorough as other brands . Take it with a few more grains of salt .

Haha I am on a ebay hiatus for now . The deals never end, but my wallet apparently has its own limits .

[Stephen1966]

amplifiers I have built with all xicon were pretty forgiving and easy to play . Too easy for me . I like less compression . Mixing them with Koa (amongst others) in select positions helps me find a balance . As stated previously, I love old Iskras for that uncompressed high mid clarity . I feel like xicons go in the opposite direction .

I hear yageo as less compressed . More high mid . But my experience using then isn’t as extensive and thorough as other brands . Take it with a few more grains of salt .

Haha I am on a ebay hiatus for now . The deals never end, but my wallet apparently has its own limits .

There are a fair few Iskras to be found as well but I turned the internet off at that point. The plan then is to just get the thing built and running first but I've learned a few things about my layouts along the way and I will be designing it for this kind of longer, extended tinkering. My power supply is a more evolved design so there are some imponderables I will need to solve there - easy enough - and then, when I have all the voltages and biases where I like them I can look to replacing whole sets of components. I think the Xicons are a good place to start, but I've used KOAs and Yageo and Beyschlag, and a few of the more exotic parts from the HiFi Collective in the UK as well, along with NOS Dralorics and Roe so I am starting to see where you are coming from...

It's really useful to have your thoughts about the character of these components, if you ever feel you want to go into more detail about "select positions," you will find I am an attentive listener.

[bepone]

i have ton of iskra, if needed.

p.s. just started again one old one 183' what i'm using like test poligon for materials. yesterday with new opt for EL34 and i have put 270k pots for drive and ratio.. i get massive fuzz in overdrive! so those pots i have returned to 100k.. also i needed to cut bass before V2 with 2n2 in series with 220k.. fuzz disapear mostly i have left it little bit in the drive it is ok for me..

so it is a question why are 270-280k pots there and what kind of guitar Had use to fine tune this amp.. probably some tele or strat with very low bass content..

p.s.2. also i have used oportunity today to test 0.5w carbon film Koa speer at the PI anodes.. instead of NTE mox...imediately difference was felt, more "bell like" content in clean tones.. i like trhia effect and they will stay there some time now

[WhopperPlate]

imediately difference was felt, more "bell like" content in clean tones.

[Stephen1966]

i have ton of iskra, if needed.

p.s. just started again one old one 183' what i'm using like test poligon for materials. yesterday with new opt for EL34 and i have put 270k pots for drive and ratio.. i get massive fuzz in overdrive! so those pots i have returned to 100k.. also i needed to cut bass before V2 with 2n2 in series with 220k.. fuzz disapear mostly i have left it little bit in the drive it is ok for me..

so it is a question why are 270-280k pots there and what kind of guitar Had use to fine tune this amp.. probably some tele or strat with very low bass content..

p.s.2. also i have used oportunity today to test 0.5w carbon film Koa speer at the PI anodes.. instead of NTE mox...imediately difference was felt, more "bell like" content in clean tones.. i like trhia effect and they will stay there some time now

What I find most interesting here, is not that you found a bell like content in clean tones (I am happy for you, by the way) and, that you achieved it through the use of 1/2W CF KOAs, but that you percieved it as "bell-like". It sounds very nice, but also, very subjective...

I don't know if anyone ever reads the (4th edition) Radiotron Designer's Handbook anymore, but there is a a fascinating chapter on 'Fidelity and Distortion' which I highly recommend. I am reproducing part of it, in full.

'The purpose of high fidelity reproduction of music is to satisfy a particular listener,
who is primarily interested in the emotions arising from what he hears. The complete
process involves sensations and emotions which cannot be treated objectively and must
bring in personal preferences and differences of opinion.
It is manifestly impossible to reproduce at the two ears of the listener an exact
equivalent of the sounds which he would hear in the concert hall...'

And it continues, breaking down the elements which influence our listening experience. It even shows graphs which demonstrate the difference of what is perceptible between an ordinary listener and, a critical listener with more acute hearing. I'm not going to break that down here, but it is worth including the final note in this chapter.

'(iii) The ear as a judge of fidelity
It is common practice to regard the ear as the final judge of fidelity, but this can only
give a true judgment when the listener has acute hearing, a keen ear for distortion, and
is not in the habit of listening to distorted music. A listener with a keen ear for distortion
can only cultivate this faculty by making frequent direct comparisons with the
original music in the concert hall.
Non-linear distortion in any good quality amplifier should be so low as to be
inaudible to the most critical listener. This distortion can therefore only be checked
by measurements.
The ear is the only final judge of fidelity with loudspeakers, although it should be
supplemented by measurements of harmonic distortion, frequency response, frequency-
modulation distortion, damping of bass resonance, time delay for 60 db increase
in sound pressure, transient decay characteristics (Shorter's method), and sub-harmonics-
see Chapter 20 Sect. 7.
The ear is the only judge of tonal balance.
In any acoustical test, .the sound level should be that of normal loudspeaker operation.'

This, in summary, is to say it is all hugely subjective but I have to believe that there is something like a common experience here. It is very difficult to give an exact description of any of these emotive qualities of musical tone; adjectives and comparisons are a poor cousin of the experiences we feel but I do, certainly believe, that by sharing our experiences here, a common vocabulary becomes possible.

An example, I think of the tone of MOX resistors as "grainy", like a picture taken in low light with a high ISO. So, I am not surprised that you find CF - which if I have a good understanding - smooth out the transient peaks, sound more "bell-like".

I am not unhappy with the descriptions you kind folks provide, because, I get it! The gist of what you're saying, anyway. But we don't have a systemic method for meaningful evaluation in my view. Probably the best meaningful evaluation is when that drunken girl starts to get her rocks off, or when the missus, who - let's face it - knows nothing about Dumble or resistors or transistors stands there, and nods, approvingly.

My point, if indeed I have a single point here, is that we put such stock in the components and the assembly of these circuits but we hardly ever acknowledge, the subjective experience of listening. This, must, always play a part in these journeys we go on.

Please. Discuss.

[WhopperPlate]

I think of the tone of MOX resistors as "grainy", like a picture taken in low light with a high ISO

.

As subjective as everything is … I haven’t really heard any descriptions from everyone here that doesn’t match my own experience … again take it with a boulder of salt for the sake of science …but I agree with most peoples perceptions I have heard

[Stephen1966]

I think of the tone of MOX resistors as "grainy", like a picture taken in low light with a high ISO

.

As subjective as everything is … I haven’t really heard any descriptions from everyone here that doesn’t match my own experience … again take it with a boulder of salt for the sake of science …but I agree with most peoples perceptions I have heard

So, we agree, there is something of a common experience here. Something that can be described as "the next level". One thing I know, is that these amps operate on different levels at different volume and gain settings. A certain level is required before the notes start to bloom, before the amp, starts to "sing". We might try to establish what that baseline is. What the originals required... before they started to sing.

[WhopperPlate]

Here’s my reference point : I play loud , and I don’t follow the crowd with the whole trendy neutering of decibals so popular with all these sound guys running their digital iPad PA systems hoping for a line out from a kemper . All tube amps sound better turned up. This is par for the course.

Sorry for the tangent rant , but here it goes: It’s hard for me to trust most professionals opinions nowadays on what constitutes “sounding good” when they think what we use today sounds good. I grew up doing live sound with good old fashioned analog boards and outboard gear ran by well respected and experienced techs that knew how to run a board. I have had some breath taking experiences , and I like to think I have a decent reference point .

When I see guys like Guthrie Govan for example plugging into their digital footprint of a rig …and I hear that chalk board scratch coming out … it’s sad…This isn’t electric guitar .

I think Dumble and I would agree .

[WhopperPlate]

With all that said … when I fine tune and dial in any amplifier I want it to sound musical at low volumes . I want it to give up the goods without choking off. It’s kinda like mixing a record , if you crank it up the whole time you lose perspective and your ears fatigue . Next thing you know you are over and under tweaking . A good amp doesn’t need to be cranked to sound good , but it’s definitely going to sound better

[Stephen1966]

With all that said … when I fine tune and dial in any amplifier I want it to sound musical at low volumes . I want it to give up the goods without choking off. It’s kinda like mixing a record , if you crank it up the whole time you lose perspective and your ears fatigue . Next thing you know you are over and under tweaking . A good amp doesn’t need to be cranked to sound good , but it’s definitely going to sound better

Amen to that.

And to these professionals... There's a guy who built a point to point 183 out of random parts, no particular goals I could figure, and I like his enthusiasm. I recommended him to someone, some time after I first heard him. So I went back, and listened again. It was not a pretty sight! It was not a sound or tone that I would have been happy with. But he thought it was the greatest. I mean, that is a standard in today's listening environment. It could well have been better than anything he had heard before, but I just knew it wasn't quite there. There is something, very definitely to be said for having a trained ear like you describe. I also grew up in a musical environment with some very talented musicians around me and I'm lucky to have had the experience of being transported by the music, the groove, whatever we might call. On stage and off. I keep a little Vox practice amp to calibrate my ears. Every time I start to feel I am losing touch with the "sound" I go back to Vox and remind myself of how truly awful, solid state amps can sound. When you start to go round and round on an ODS its good to go back to a Tweedle Dee and hear the sag again and the roar of that little amp. It's very easy to lose our tonal balance if we don't recalibrate our ears every now and again.

If you haven't checked out bepone's YT link on his 183s thread, I recommend you do that... He's a very talented guy and his amp tone has moments of brilliance the way he recorded it. Maybe he could tell you about the settings he used in that recording but it isn't all that necessary, I think you can hear it.

Perhaps we shouldn't be so apologetic about our ranting, I don't buy the "navel gazing/cork sniffing" argument. Sometimes, to do a thing right, you have to dig down. Digging down here, means evaluating the sound holistically, the amp is more than the sum of parts. A magical combination. Elements include all the material parts but also the experiences which inform its presence.

[bepone]

If you haven't checked out bepone's YT link on his 183s thread, I recommend you do that... He's a very talented guy and his amp tone has moments of brilliance the way he recorded it. Maybe he could tell you about the settings he used in that recording but it isn't all that necessary, I think you can hear it.

hey that's me thanks for kind words, i'm just trying, like everybody

[Stephen1966]

If you haven't checked out bepone's YT link on his 183s thread, I recommend you do that... He's a very talented guy and his amp tone has moments of brilliance the way he recorded it. Maybe he could tell you about the settings he used in that recording but it isn't all that necessary, I think you can hear it.

hey that's me thanks for kind words, i'm just trying, like everybody

Ah! Don't be shy. You know you're good